


To New Beginnings

by Themadwomanwhoisunfortunatelylackingabox



Series: Dream a Little Dream (Of How You Want The World To Be) [2]
Category: Les Trois Mousquetaires | The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas, The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Again, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, I overuse color metaphors, M/M, Mentions of Blood, Minor Violence, Period-Typical Homophobia, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, and to wax poetic on Milady de Winter, to bring you long and rambly laments on Athos's state of mind, vague descriptions of gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-12
Updated: 2015-09-12
Packaged: 2018-04-20 11:39:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4786001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Themadwomanwhoisunfortunatelylackingabox/pseuds/Themadwomanwhoisunfortunatelylackingabox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The world seemed monochrome without Charlotte, everything in blue and gray. Then he met them, and everything seemed to lighten up again.</p><p>AKA, how Athos meets his soulmates and finally realizes they're in love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To New Beginnings

Charlotte had been everything: The stars, the sun. A fixture for him to revolve around. An anchor in uncertain waters. He had loved her. He had. She hadn’t been his soulmate, and he hadn’t been hers, but he still loved her. Some part of him might always love her.

Yet the _Charles_ on his chest was never meant to be her name, despite how close it was, and the _Adele_ which marked her neck was never even close to _Olivier_.  But she was the closest thing to perfection that he had ever known, and the memory of her clung to him like the scent of her perfume.

Everything was tinted the color blue, these days. It had been her favorite color; the color of her ribbons, her clothes, and those damnable flowers---

(Everything was tinted the color blue, these days, but at the same time everything felt gray.)

They hadn’t had children. It wasn’t that they had tried not to---but it wasn’t exactly like they had tried to, either. Athos’s parents had been soulmates. Charlotte’s hadn’t, but he still didn’t like the thought of children born outside of that. (“They’re far more likely to be markless, Olivier,” his old nanny had said when he and Charlotte had announced their engagement. “Which is why I’m so happy you found your Charlotte.”)

Now he wondered what a child would’ve been like; a little girl with Charlotte’s curly hair but her father’s blue eyes, a little girl with some boy’s soulmark across her chubby palm so that she could escape her parents’ fate. They would’ve named her Cécile, after his mother, or Renée, after Charlotte’s, and she would’ve been more vibrant than the sun.

He would’ve loved her more than he had ever loved anything, except maybe Charlotte. Maybe they would’ve been a happy family. Maybe everything would’ve turned out alright, because maybe if they’d have had a daughter Thomas wouldn’t have felt a need to go prying to see if Charlotte was actually Athos’s soulmate. He wouldn’t have seen Charlotte’s soulmark.

(Athos found her, sleepy and bleary eyed and wondering where she went. He wouldn’t have found her, bloody on the ground.

Thomas had said that he thought she was untrue to him, that their soulbond had to be unrequited, that she was a liar and a cheat. _(Little did he know._ ) He said that he tore off her necklace, only to find she was a freak of nature---

(And oh, did that hurt,)

\---and Thomas tried to cut that out of her. For his brother, he said. For his beloved brother Olivier.

And Athos was left screaming for a doctor as he stared at her laboring for breath, the blood staining everything. Oh god, there was so much blood… Her dress had been white, hadn’t it? He couldn’t tell.)

He only drank white wine, now. White wine, absinthe, various other liquors when he could afford them on his Musketeer’s salary. That was alright, Charlotte prefered white wine. It didn’t matter as long as it wasn’t red. Which was ridiculous, but. There were only two things the color of red wine.

(Red like her blood, staining lace and satin. Would that have been him, had Thomas known about him?

He didn’t like to think so. He didn’t want to think so. Not his baby brother. Not Thomas. Thomas would never hurt anyone--- or so he had thought.

Thomas would never hurt anyone again. He would never have the chance to.

(He was hung the day after, crying “She was nothing, Olivier---Olivier, please---Why---” But Thomas had killed his wife. And there was one sentence for murder.

(Did that really even count anymore, if it was a person like Charlotte who was murdered? A person like him.)

Athos looked away, and pretended he couldn’t hear him scream. (He still heard them. Every night.) Justice was never supposed to be painless.)

He still couldn’t walk into La Fere anymore. He couldn’t think of it. The place felt like death in every corner, death where only life should be. He had an uncle in Paris, he knew. Some estranged uncle that his mother had hardly spoken about and only did so when his father wasn’t there. His Uncle would give him a job, he was doing something with the army.)

 

 

He had been drowning his sorrows in a bottle of...something, when he met Aramis. He wasn’t very hard to miss. There was something about him that was different, something about him that glowed. For a moment he almost thought it was Charles, and then he hated himself for it. He didn’t need Charles. He didn’t need anyone.

(They’d just end up like Charlotte.)

Yet the man just plopped down beside him and ordered himself a drink, with the infectious kind of happiness that even made Athos feel a little more human. “My sister found her soulmate today,”  he said.

Despite his warm smile all Athos could feel was cold. “Congratulations,” he said, downing the rest of his drink to feel warm again.

“Haven’t found yours, I take it?”

“Something like that.”

“Then another drink for me, and another for you, my friend.” He flagged down the barmaid, and handed him a glass of red wine. “We’re celebrating tonight. To new beginnings.”

 _New beginnings._ He stared into his glass. Could he drown from this, a single glass of wine, dimly reflecting his face back at him? If he put it to his mouth, would it suddenly turn to her blood, choking him from the inside out?

He was not sure if his hands were shaking, wasn’t sure if he looked insane, wasn’t sure if the strange man next to him was now regretting speaking to him. Athos wouldn’t begrudge him that; even Athos wouldn’t want to speak to Athos.

A moment passed. Another.

He drank the wine.

It didn’t taste like blood. He didn’t drown or choke or die. It was just wine. Nothing more, nothing less.  He was fine. It was fine. And the man next to him smiled like sunlight. “Better now, my friend?”

“Something like that.” He said. “What’s your name?”  
“Aramis.” He said. “Just Aramis.”

“I’m Athos,” he said, and it felt right on his tongue in a way Olivier had before, but never would again. “Just Athos.”

Something faltered in Aramis’s eyes, a split second of strange lighting and tender features. It was almost beautiful. It was almost tragic.

“It’s not that I haven’t found my soulmate,” he said, something fearful clawing his way into his heart and saying, _Charlotte, Charlotte, Charlotte_. “It’s that I’ve lost her.” She wasn’t his soulmate. She wasn’t.

She was as close to a soulmate as he ever had needed. As he ever would have.

“My apologies, my friend,” Aramis said, his voice strangely hoarse and one hand on Athos’s shoulder. Comforting. Warm, tingling. “That’s a fate that should never befall anyone.”

 

Porthos came after Aramis, so close that suddenly it turned from being Just Athos, to Athos-and-Aramis-and-Porthos.

Porthos was the sort of man that exuded joy like some men did confidence, Porthos looked like he would live in between wine bottles and card games; the sort of man who had seen pain but only lived for the fun.

Athos liked him immediately. Had liked the warmth in Porthos’s eyes, had liked how Aramis relaxed whenever he saw him.

Things were comfortable between them. No talk about soulmates, no talk about pain. Just the push-pull of familiarity, of friendship and teasing, and a lightness in Athos’s chest that he never thought he’d have after La Fere.

Looking back now, he should have known he’d end up in their bed. They were so close, and they were the only ones for him. Paris was big and grand and horrid, but they were golden. He should have ended up in their bed sooner, to be honest, should have ended up there when he had nothing and no one and he felt so alone.

(Even though, sometimes, when they looked at him and thought he couldn’t see, they looked as though they were breaking apart from the inside out.)

Once, when he had been more drunk than he thought possible to be without dying, let alone upright and vaguely coherent, he asked Aramis about his soulmate. This had been after he had known him for what felt like an age, when he felt so sick from keeping the lie that Charlotte had been his soulmate, when Aramis had known everything about him save for the pain.

There was nothing he would regret more than not being her soulmate.

Then Aramis looked at him with sad brown eyes, so dark Athos thought he would drown, and said, “It’s unrequited, I’m afraid,” and pretended like it didn’t hurt. It did, he could tell, in the way the light from the candle beside his bed reflected in Aramis’s eyes.

He should never have asked. He should have let Aramis spill him into his bed and retreat back to his own quarters, but. He had asked. Of course he had. Because Athos had a reason for never speaking about the damn name on his chest, but Aramis and Porthos didn't have one. They didn’t talk about it because of him. He had no idea if they had met theirs, or if they didn’t even have one.   
But this was worse than any thought about their soulmates that he could have ever construed.

This was wrong. This could never be right. Not Aramis. Not Aramis with his charm and pretty face; how could anyone not love Aramis? How could whatever god there was---if there even was one---let Aramis be stuck alone, half of his soul stuck in some other person who wouldn’t give him the time of day?

At that precise moment, nothing mattered more than Aramis, than hunting down whoever had the gall to see him and not love him, who would turn him down indefinitely, without a second thought. He wasn’t sure if he was shaking. He thought, for one strange, maddening moment, that he could kill whoever it was without regret.

“Athos---Athos, it’s alright.”

It wasn’t alright. It wasn’t alright, damn it, because Athos could handle being without his soulmate for the rest of his life, Athos could handle never meeting his. But Aramis was meant for better things. Aramis was, Porthos was. Athos’s own soulmate was. Now there was a bond that should have been unrequited. He would give anything for that, for his soulmate to have someone else.

(And that sounded so cruel when Aramis was obviously in agony about it happening to him, but. His soulmate should have had someone else in the first place. He hadn’t met Athos yet, but who would want him now? Charlotte might’ve, if she had been here to see him. But she wasn’t. And she never would be. Soulmate or not, she was all he had needed. All he had known.

But Charles deserved better than someone broken from the memory of someone who wasn’t even his soulmate. Charles deserved someone different. Charles deserved someone who could look at him like he was the brightest thing to happen in his life. And that person could never be Athos. Not like this. Not some shaking mess of a man who had nothing left for him but his friends.

His friends deserved better than him, too, but they had chose him, and that was better than them being shackled to him by destiny.)

“I’m sorry, Aramis.” He said, though it sounded hollow and hardly good enough.

“It’s not your fault, Athos.” He said, a weak smile gracing his face. “It’s not anyone’s.”

“Still.” He said. “It’s not right.” _That anyone should have to go through that._ With how many times Athos had wished it onto himself, that should have been a lie. But Aramis was meant to be whole. Athos was not. They were completely different circumstances.

“It’s alright, Athos,” Aramis insisted, squeezing Athos’s hand. “I made my peace with it a long time ago.”

That didn’t make any better. Didn’t make it right. But maybe---maybe something else could.

(Aramis had golden Spanish skin and eyes so warm and so dark Athos could drown. Aramis had long dark hair that would be wonderful for pulling, and candlelight and wine made everything a bit easier. Aramis wouldn’t mind that Athos wasn’t his soulmate. Aramis wouldn’t mind that he had spent so long alone. Aramis---Aramis cared. Aramis mattered.

Aramis was beautiful.)

He wasn’t sure when he started kissing him, only that it happened. In an instant, the entire world shrunk in size; there was nothing left in the world but Aramis and his hair and his stubble scraping across Athos’s cheeks. Nothing left but a vague throb in his soulmark and hot-warm-good lips crushed against his own.

It wasn’t like with Charlotte. Charlotte had been smooth cheeks and soft lips and gentle kisses in the garden. Charlotte had been soft and sweet and the perfect wife. She had melted into him whenever he kissed her, had entwined their souls in between caresses. She had made herself a part of him and he had made himself a part of her, and soulmates seemed petty compared to them.

Aramis was different. Aramis was hot and warm and wet and halting; pushed forward by desperation and yet pulled backward by hesitation. “Athos,” he murmured, when they pulled apart to breathe, and he said his name so nicely, his pupils blown wide “You’re not thinking straight, Athos.”

But he pressed forward again, and Aramis seemed to lose all of his protests. Just once. He wanted to pretend just once. (That he wasn’t broken, wasn’t in love with a dead woman, that he had a soulmate he loved and loved him in return, that he didn’t see the world in shades of blue.)

So he mumbled stolen words into Aramis’s collarbone, and pressed stolen kisses into his neck. Aramis’s crucifix tangled around his fingers for one short, terrifying moment, but Aramis pulled it off with ease. “It’s alright,” he murmured, and kissed him back, the necklace lying forgotten on the ground.

He kissed his way down his shoulder, past the patch of black lettering. He wouldn’t look, he told himself. But Aramis hadn’t bothered to cover it up, so why shouldn’t he? It would be fine. But that didn’t mean he should.

(But he had to know. Had to know who it was that Aramis was destined to love, yet never be loved back. Had to know who destiny would force cruelly upon him.)

He looked.

There, curling softly around Aramis’s bicep, _Porthos du Vallon._

Everything went a little cold. He wasn’t sure who he was expecting to see, but Porthos wasn’t it. Porthos was never supposed to cause Aramis pain. They were Treville’s inseparables, loving each other almost like brothers---or rather not like brothers, considering how Athos was sprawled on top of Aramis---and the thought of Porthos having a soulmate outside of them, well. It didn’t seem right.

He wasn’t sure when Aramis went still beneath him, hadn’t even noticed that they had both stopped moving the moment Athos had set eyes upon his mark. “Athos,” he said, quiet and uncertain. “It’s not Porthos that’s unrequited.”

A poly bond. No wonder they didn’t talk about soulmates either, then. Something like that was hard to hide. But if Aramis had Porthos, then what was he doing here, with him, instead of with Porthos? Why would Aramis kiss him, if he didn’t need to pretend he was someone else?

_(Who was their third?)_

There were bandages over Aramis’s other arm, but he hadn’t been hurt. They were clean bandages, white against tan, and he knew what they were hiding. He should have known it from the start. All for one, one for all.

“Athos----Athos, don’t.” Aramis whispered as Athos’s hands shook. “It’s not your fault. I know that.”

But that didn’t matter, couldn’t he see? That didn’t matter, because Charles was so far away, and Charlotte was dead, and Aramis was so real, Porthos was so real. He knew them. He knew them. (They were perfect. Not really, but for Athos, they were perfect.) He touched the bandages. Aramis didn’t try to stop him. They came apart under his hands: _Olivier d’Athos de La Fere._

All was quiet for a moment. He traced his hands over the mark; warmth and electricity. Then. “I think we ought to go get Porthos.”

Aramis laughed. They tumbled out of bed, haphazardly throwing on their shirts and stumbling out the door.

Seeing Porthos's face as they stood outside his door was enough to make Athos grateful for every painful minute he spent alive. Tackling them into bed was enough to make him dream of immortality, of some sort of universe where there was only them, forever.

And sandwiched between Porthos and Aramis in one small bed, Athos could finally feel warm in a way he hadn’t since La Fere. (Was this what love was?)

(And in the morning they’ll ask about his dead soulmate, and he’ll tell them about Charlotte, but for now he couldn't bring himself to worry.

(He would learn that even if they casted him out, They would always let him come back, in the end.)

And in two years, six months, and twelve days, a gascon boy would ride into Paris with _Athos_ across his chest and _Porthos_ on his knee.

And finally, Athos would feel whole.)

 ****  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry this is so Aramis/Athos heavy. I mean??? I don't even ship them alone, I just had some trouble bringing in Porthos??? anyway. Hope you all liked it!


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